7th most wanted drug trafficker falls in Davao

DAVAO CITY — Authorities have arrested the country’s seventh most wanted drug manufacturer and trafficker as part of the government’s relentless campaign against illegal drugs.

Arrested was Sze-Man Pen, 60, also known as Benito Sy or Benito Sze, who had a reward of P500,000 for his arrest.

The suspect was presented to Mayor Rodrigo Duterte at the Southern Mindanao police headquarters at Camp Catitipan the other day.

Wilkins Villanueva, Southern Mindanao chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, said Sze-Man is believed to be a member of a big transnational group operating in the country.

Sze-man reportedly acted as manager and operations officer of a chain of clandestine shabu laboratories in Cavite and other parts of Luzon, he said.

The suspect was arrested at his residence in Doña Paz Subdivision here last Tuesday morning by a joint team of the regional police intelligence office and the regional units of the Bureau of Immigration and the PDEA.

Sze-Man was arrested on the basis of a warrant issued sometime in 2003 by the Cavite regional trial court for alleged violation of Article II of Republic Act 9165 after he was found to be involved in the operations of a shabu laboratory in Silang, Cavite. — Edith Regalado